Читать книгу Future Proofing You - Jay Samit - Страница 14

Even more than I hate the zero‐sum mindset, I hate competition. I am one of the most competitive people you will ever meet and yet, I really hate having to compete. As confident and motivated as I may be on my best day, I am still pretty sure that there is someone out there that is better qualified, better financed, or just plain smarter than me. So, whenever I am starting a new business, I try to avoid competition for as long as possible. You will win every race as long as you are the only runner on the track. To increase my chances of winning, I go where there aren't any competitors. I always focus on the next new thing. I started on the internet in 1978, created software for the first personal computers in the 1980s, pioneered ecommerce in 1996, built a million‐member social network in 1998, launched a top 100 mobile app in 2011, and got involved with Bitcoin in 2013. I didn't invent the internet or the smartphone. I didn't create cryptocurrency. I am not even an engineer. I am just an entrepreneur looking for the next opportunity to disrupt the status quo. As the world's greatest hockey player Wayne Gretzky famously said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

In my Ted talk It's Time to Disrupt You!, I pose this question to the audience, “Ever ask yourself where virtually reality experts or Internet of Things Experts or Bitcoin experts come from?” In reality they are people who started with no more expertise than the rest of us. They are all just self‐proclaimed experts who then worked hard to grow and defend the turf they so wisely staked out. They race to where the puck is going to be and then figure out how to skate. I live by the adage, “be the best at what you do or the only one doing it.” For if you are the only one doing it, by definition, you are the best. To succeed you need to embrace a growth mindset.

In her 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Stanford Professor Carol Dweck coined the term growth mindset. Dweck spent decades researching students' attitudes about success and failure. She wanted to understand why some children could easily bounce back from major failure while others were completely devastated by the most minor of setbacks. The differences among children had less to do with the external circumstances of the specific task at hand and more to do with their preconceived notions of their own abilities. Some students, those with fixed mindsets, believed they were stupid and there was nothing they could do about it. I'm not bright enough to learn algebra. For them, intelligence was innate and failure was predestined. Why try when the outcome will always be disappointing? Remember the elephant with the fixed mindset at the beginning of this chapter?

On the other hand, students with a growth mindset saw the world completely differently. These students believe that with work and effort, they can improve and grow smarter. If I make flashcards, I'll ace the Spanish test. The more you believe that you can improve, the more effort you will put toward your goals. Over time, students with a growth mindset attain higher achievement and a more positive outlook on life. Positive thinking expands creativity, increases energy, raises intelligence, and even closes more sales. Success doesn't make you happy; being happy creates success. As long as you are in control of your happiness, you are future proof.

Having a growth mindset not only changes how you deal with setbacks; it actually rewires the physiology of your brain. The human brain is not hard‐wired from birth. Numerous studies in neuroscience have proven that the connectivity between neurons in the brain's neural networks grow with experience. The brain's plasticity, the degree to which it is malleable, can be improved by basic actions such as asking questions, eating healthy foods, and getting enough sleep. Turns out, science supports everything your mother told you to do as a kid. So how does an adult develop a growth mindset?

The first truth you must accept for Future Proofing You is that nothing can be achieved without a growth mindset. Developing and maintaining a growth mindset is the foundation upon which all other great accomplishments can be achieved.

“This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts,” Carol Dweck writes in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. “Although people may differ in every which way in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments, everyone can change and grow through application and experience,” Dweck explains.¹³

People with a fixed mindset see having to work hard at something as proof that they are not smart enough or good enough to achieve anything. I'll never become a real estate agent because I could never pass the exam. Every aspect of their lives is viewed through a lens of seeing their hard effort as needing to compensate for a lack of talent. A person with a fixed mindset thinks, for example, that they could never play basketball like Michael Jordan because he has natural talent. When in fact, a growth mindset is the real reason Michael Jordan became the greatest basketball player of all time.

“I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life,” Jordan famously said. “And that is why I succeed.”¹⁴

A fixed mindset not only limits your future, it can prevent you from enjoying every aspect of your life. Will doing this make me look stupid to co‐workers? Will I be rejected? If every social setting requires you to feel like you have to prove your self‐worth, life begins to feel like a never‐ending struggle. Quite simply, living with a fixed mindset is exhausting, and that is why too many people give up. Some of the most influential people in your life, parents and teachers, friends and spouses, discourage you from trying because they have given up on their dreams. Parents and spouses don't want to see you hurt as they may have been. If you train your own mind, it will silence all the naysayers in your life.

With a growth mindset, you teach yourself to reframe every fixed negative thought into a potentiality. Instead of thinking, “I tried and I failed,” ask yourself, “Are there other strategies I could try?” Start embracing obstacles as opportunities, or as Michael Jordan says, “If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”¹⁵

Remember, your future is mutable. My eldest son wanted to be a Hollywood screenwriter. It is an incredibly difficult industry to break into. Out of the thousands of screenplays written each year, only a couple dozen are produced into movies by the film studios. Many writers give up because, suffering from a fixed mindset and facing constant rejection, they are fearful of people asking the question: Have I seen any of your movies? And having to answer, no. To them, not having sold a script or having a film produced is an acknowledgment of their personal failure. They think of themselves as not good enough because no studio has made their movie. But my son has a growth mindset. For years, when people would ask Benji or his writing partner Dan Hernandez: Have I seen any of your movies? He would always answer, “Not yet.” Not yet implies it can and will happen. Today, after a decade of writing, when people ask the question, he can reply, “Did you see Pokémon Detective Pikachu? (And his proud father can add, “The second highest grossing film in the world in 2019!”)

As with screenwriting or basketball, developing a growth mindset takes practice and effort.